Part III SOHO and the Sun—A Revolutionary Relationship
Can people go to Mars, or not? “It’s a question of radiation,” says Frank Cucinotta of NASA’s Space Radiation Health Project at the Johnson Space Center. “We know how much radiation is out there, waiting for us between Earth and Mars, but we’re not sure how the human body is going to react to it.”
Deep space is dangerous, although we are continuously developing higher forms of space technology to understand it better. Filled with cosmic rays, exploding stars, protons from solar flares, and gamma rays from brand new black holes, Mars is a long ways away with nothing to protect us between here and there.
With the largest risk from radiation, statistics are showing us that a healthy young non-smoking male has a 40% chance of developing cancer. In space with radiation risks, that statistic will go up. According to Frank Cucinotta, a 1,000-day mission to Mars will increase the cancer risk from 1% to 19%, with the most common average running 3.4% which is an acceptable risk percentage.
The highest risk to the Mars astronauts is the galactic cosmic rays, referred to as GCRs. With the most dangerous ones being the heavily ionized supernovas Fe+26, they are particles which have almost lightening speed developed by distant supernova explosions. According to the NASA report, “They’re much more energetic (millions of MeV) than typical protons accelerated by solar flares (tens to hundreds of MeV),” notes Cucinotta. This high energy has the ability to go through spaceships and people like little cannon balls, breaking down the DNA molecules, damaging genes and killing cells.
There is very little danger to the International Space Station as it is located only 400 km above the surface of Earth, which intercepts about one-third of the GCRs before it every reaches the ISS, while another third is deflected by the magnetic field of Earth.
Yet for astronauts who travel to the moon or future Mars missions, there will be higher absorbed doses—which is three times the level on the ISS—but only for a few days during an Earth-moon cruise. The worst damage to astronauts is to the eyes, with many developing cataracts over the years after being exposed to cosmic ray flashes in their cataracts. But that seems to be the only drawback from being out in space for a short time.
Unfortunately, going to Mars will be longer than just a few days. There are no facts available for trips to Mars and what will occur to the astronauts over extended periods. To find out, in 2003 a Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) has been developed by NASA to find out such things.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 3:32 am and is filed under Mission Objectives, Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
